News & Blog

Additional Forest Sanctuary area urgently needed to provide home for another 20 bears in need of rescue (October 2011)

An additional large forested enclosure has to be built in the oak forest at the Libearty bear sanctuary in Romania. This is urgently needed to provide space for around 20 bears which are known to be in poor captive conditions in Romania. Some are in run-down zoos where the zoo management simply cannot care for the bears adequately, while other bears are being kept illegally in small cages in private ownership. The Romanian government will confiscate these animals as soon as space becomes available at the bear sanctuary.

The funding for the new forested sanctuary area work will be provided by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) and the construction work will be co-ordinated by the Romanian animal protection group - Millions of Friends- who manage the bear sanctuary.

There are now 58 rescued bears relaxing in the forested areas of the bear sanctuary in Romania. The sunshine in September has brought many of the bears out of the forested area into the meadows to play and into the water pools to cool down.

Betsy, a European brown bear over 30 years old, was rescued from a small cage in Houston, Texas and brought all the way to Romania in 2010 to spend her remaining days in the safety of the Libearty bear sanctuary. She spent so many years caged for her owner's amusement but now, in her old age, at least she has the comfort of grass beneath her paws and the luxury of a cool water pool to relax in.

Betsy is old for a bear, and she has a touch of arthritis, so she now sticks to a simple daily routine of ambling around the grassy enclosure and popping into the water pool to sit and relax in the heat of the day - a luxury she was denied while caged in the hot, steaming temperatures of the Texan summer.

Seeing her quietly and gently climbing into the pool and sitting with a contented look on her face is a world away from her many years of suffering and is yet another reason to thank the Romanian sanctuary for the life it has returned to yet another bear.